Posted originally on Feb 24, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
QUESTION: Hi Martin,
You have mentioned over and over that J.P. Morgan had to bail out the US Government in the late 1890’s with gold, which was US money at that time. Can you explain to us how the US economy could be strong at that time when the US Government went broke collecting tariffs on imports?
Chaz
ANSWER: The economy was strong, it was the silver democrats who overvalued silver taking bribes from the silver miners. That led to the arbitrage silver was pouring into the USA and swapped for gold. The insolvency was not from domestic debt but from the overvaluation of silver, and gold was the international settlement – not silver.
Today, we are in a debt crisis. This is economically different. The Panic of 1896 was about foreign exchange and the Democrats trying to inflate the economy with silver as they are still trying today with endless spending and no accountability. This led to their attack on the gold standard and the 1893 march on Washington that became the Wizard of Oz. See:
Posted originally on Jan 30, 2025 by Martin Armstrong |
Total global debt has peaked to 326% of global GDP, adding an additional $12 trillion of debt in the last three quarters of 2024, according to the Institute of International Finance. This figure surpasses what we saw amid the pandemic and is expected to continually rise and governments continue to borrow with no intention of repayment.
The Big Bang of the sovereign debt crisis began in 2015.75, as indicated by the computers, around the introduction of negative rates and Quotative Easing, which shifted the risk from the free market to the central banks. The 2015.75 date was also 26 years from the first break in Marxism in 1989. The bottom of the ECM from 2015.75 to 2020.05 was also 31.4 years from the start of the fall of communism that culminated in the final stages of the collapse of socialism. I repeatedly warned that our models indicated the banks would become trapped by these policies and now we have a completely unsustainable situation.
If interest rates rise, their portfolios crash in value (price). Such an outcome would raise the question of will the private sector return to the government bond markets when they see there is a rising risk factor? Our model showed that this would not be the case. In other words, the Sovereign Debt Crisis has taken place and to prevent the PRICE crash, the central banks became the buyer to hold interest rates down and bond prices up. We have seen governments and institutions offload bonds and government debt since the Big Bang.
Emerging markets have reached 245% of GDP in debt, totaling $105 trillion. Poor nations are now spending more on their debt than infrastructure, health care, or education. These nations cannot afford to simply not repay and multilateral development banks have turned into lenders of last resort.
ALL government debt is in serious trouble because they just never fund a damn thing. The solution is to always borrow and there is no plan to ever pay anything back. The behind the curtain reasoning is they are burning money for fuel because they are always reducing the value of prior debt that is never indexed to inflation.
We have seen larger economies begin the snowball effect of borrowing after World War II and the repercussions are now arising. Now we have a serious crisis that has shifted from the free trading bond markets exclusively to the central banks. This is part of the crisis unfolding in the repo market. There does not appear to be any recovery on the horizon. Politicians are undermining the confidence in government, to begin with, and that will influence bond buyers.
The astounding debt crisis has fanned the flames of war as initiating a global conflict is a way, politicians believe, to continue delaying debt payments. The majority of nations are simply too far gone in debt to ever properly repay. Who would buy if there is no guaranteed return?
Total global government debt is now $98,000,000,000,000 ($98 trillion) and is forecast to reach $130 trillion by 2028, which is also when the computer has predicted that the world will feel the aftershocks of a global recession.
Total global debt has peaked to 326% of global GDP, adding an additional $12 trillion of debt in the last three quarters of 2024, according to the Institute of International Finance. This figure surpasses what we saw amid the pandemic and is expected to continually rise and governments continue to borrow with no intention of repayment.
The Big Bang of the sovereign debt crisis began in 2015.75, as indicated by the computers, around the introduction of negative rates and Quotative Easing, which shifted the risk from the free market to the central banks. The 2015.75 date was also 26 years from the first break in Marxism in 1989. The bottom of the ECM from 2015.75 to 2020.05 was also 31.4 years from the start of the fall of communism that culminated in the final stages of the collapse of socialism. I repeatedly warned that our models indicated the banks would become trapped by these policies and now we have a completely unsustainable situation.
If interest rates rise, their portfolios crash in value (price). Such an outcome would raise the question of will the private sector return to the government bond markets when they see there is a rising risk factor? Our model showed that this would not be the case. In other words, the Sovereign Debt Crisis has taken place and to prevent the PRICE crash, the central banks became the buyer to hold interest rates down and bond prices up. We have seen governments and institutions offload bonds and government debt since the Big Bang.
Emerging markets have reached 245% of GDP in debt, totaling $105 trillion. Poor nations are now spending more on their debt than infrastructure, health care, or education. These nations cannot afford to simply not repay and multilateral development banks have turned into lenders of last resort.
ALL government debt is in serious trouble because they just never fund a damn thing. The solution is to always borrow and there is no plan to ever pay anything back. The behind the curtain reasoning is they are burning money for fuel because they are always reducing the value of prior debt that is never indexed to inflation.
We have seen larger economies begin the snowball effect of borrowing after World War II and the repercussions are now arising. Now we have a serious crisis that has shifted from the free trading bond markets exclusively to the central banks. This is part of the crisis unfolding in the repo market. There does not appear to be any recovery on the horizon. Politicians are undermining the confidence in government, to begin with, and that will influence bond buyers.
The astounding debt crisis has fanned the flames of war as initiating a global conflict is a way, politicians believe, to continue delaying debt payments. The majority of nations are simply too far gone in debt to ever properly repay. Who would buy if there is no guaranteed return?
Total global government debt is now $98,000,000,000,000 ($98 trillion) and is forecast to reach $130 trillion by 2028, which is also when the computer has predicted that the world will feel the aftershocks of a global recession.
Posted originally on Jan 30, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
President Donald Trump implemented a widespread freeze on federal loans and grants, ordering all agencies this week to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance.” He was forced to back off after a federal judge halted some of the freeze. The public sector has been multiplying in recent years to the point that there are thousands of agencies whose true purpose are unknown. While many view the act as extreme, public sector growth has become detrimental to our economy and one must determine what exactly the government is funding.
As Adam Smith wrote in “Wealth of Nations”:
“Like an improvident spendthrift, whose pressing occasions will not allow him to wait for the regular payment of his revenue, the state is in the constant practice of borrowing of its own factors and agents, and of paying interest for the use of its own money.”
The wealth of a nation is composed of more than money or gold, for the original idea of “money” did not embrace the concept of true wealth. Money is merely our mental measure of wealth. Cultures in different parts of the world all conceive of money but it is merely how they measure this universal concept of wealth.
There is only one constant and that is the greater the size of government, the lower the production of national wealth. Therefore, the higher the percentage of a nation’s work force is employed by the public sector, the lower its real national product. We saw this in Argentina as of late. Of course, government wishes to include itself in the GDP calculation and it counts government workers twice in many countries. It adds total government spending and adds that to total personal income. By doing this they count all government employees twice for they do not back it out of the total government spending. So we have bogus statistics in GDP as well for the economy appears better when government hires rather than the public sector. That is why we will see unemployment rise under Trump but in all actuality that figure will not be indicative of the overall health of our economy.
Now, Trump specifically is asking for more information on 2,600 programs to determine their legitimacy. Biden implemented a slew of DEI iniatives and programs that do nothing but TAKE from our economy. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sent the aforementioned companies the following questions:
Does this program provide funding that is implicated by the directive to end discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities, under whatever name they appear, or other directives in the same EO, including those related to “environmental justice” programs or “equity-related” grants?
Does this program promote gender ideology?
Does this program promote or support in any way abortion or other related activities identified in the Hyde Amendment?
“It means no more funding for the green new scam that has cost American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday at her first news briefing. “It means no more funding for transgenderism and wokeness across our federal bureaucracy and agencies.” The new press secretary, who actually responds to questions, said it is “the responsibility of this president and this administration to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.” Welfare aid programs are not vanishing, rather, the government is reevaluating its spending to best direct dollars.
Organizations promoting woke gender ideology, DEI, and the green new deal will be the first to go but a significant cut is needed to restore some order. The fear mongering about Trump eliminating Medicaid and food assistance programs are unfounded. The new administration must determine what agencies are legitimate and eliminating services that do not add to our society in any meaningful way is the first step.
Argentina is an excellent example of how quickly an economy can recover when we remove socialistic programs. There were 341,477 people in the public sector on government payroll when President Milei took office, and his aim is to eliminate 70,000 needless positions. From December 2023 to October 2024, Argentina reduced the national administration was reduced by 10% and state-run firms decreased by 12.6%. Reducing the national administration alone saved the government $3.82 billion in the short-term, not accounting for future payouts, additional staffing, or pensions. Yet he began by eliminating services that were simply unnecessary.
Milei first eliminated useless agencies such as the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Labor, and Ministry of Social Development. In his words, Argentina WAS a poor country that could not afford these departments that do absolutely nothing to improve the nation’s economic conditions. No one noticed when he reduced the cabinet by 50%, but the economy certainly took note and posted its first budget surplus in 123 years this December.
“The deficit was the root of all our evils — without it, there’s no debt, no emission, no inflation. Today, we have a sustained fiscal surplus, free of default, for the first time in 123 years. This historic achievement came from the greatest adjustment in history and reducing monetary emission to zero. A year ago, a degenerate printed 13% of GDP to win an election, fueling inflation. Today, monetary emission is a thing of the past,” Milei proudly announced.
Yes, other factors contributed to Argentina’s recent success, but moving away from socialism and ever-growing social programs was paramount. Socialism NEVER works but world leaders refuse to learn from the past.
Under Biden, we saw manufacturing flee the US. The jobs reports often looked promising but they failed to recognize the rising public sector that can never contribute to GDP. We have seen what happens when governments grow to disproportionate figures and it never ends well. The longest reigning empire, the Roman Empire, fell as a direct result of an oversized public sector that bankrupted Rome. The private sector produces economic growth, while government is a public servant consuming the wealth generated by others.
The Deep State is more than a swamp; it is an ocean. It is so deeply rooted that I wish Trump all the best, but I am not sure he will be able to root out the core corruption. That will probably take a sovereign default, and history warns that a revolution will often follow. This time, the government is entrenched in bribing the people to retain power, giving them free food and circuses, and they will be the government alone, as they used to say in Rome.
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